This is the busiest time of year for dating sites

Location-based dating apps report a surge over the holidays

For many lovelorn singletons, the holidays are the loneliest time of year. But the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve are among the busiest for location-based dating apps. In fact, many dating websites say their customers even appear to be logging on between courses.

Whether it’s because people are trying to find an old flame when they’re home for the holidays or seeking out new partners before the new year, many of the world’s biggest dating sites report a spike in mobile activity this time of year. Dating app Zoosk typically sees a 26% increase in signups during the two weeks after Christmas. Grindr, an app for gay men, had a 15% rise in activity on Thanksgiving and usually experiences a 30% to 50% increase on Dec. 25. Another location-based dating app, Tinder, usually experiences a 5% to 7% surge in users on Dec. 26. “I expect to see a big jump right through the holidays,” says Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen. “Mobile dating makes it much easier for users to interact with each other.”

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Unlike making a resolution to start going to the gym more in the new year, many people don’t want to wait when it comes to dating. “Hanukkah, Thanksgiving and New Year are when singles around the dinner table think, ‘Maybe it would be better to have a partner,’” says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst and the editor of Online Personals Watch. “That’s when they start hitting dating sites in droves and go on dates before the indigestion sets in.” For those who dread spending the holidays with family, however, he says family should come first around the holidays—even if they’re tempted to eat and run. “They’re going to be around for you long after your relationships,” he says. “The trick with holiday dating is to make sure no one feels neglected.”

To be sure, dating apps also have a surge in activity any time of year where millions of people are off work at the same time. During the first and second week of the federal government shutdown last October when 800,000 federal employees were furloughed, the number of times Zoosk members played Zoosk’s “Carousel” game and clicked on profiles of people they’d like to meet increased by 92% and 110%, respectively. The Carousel displays random profiles allowing people to choose those who catch their fancy. (“We lean towards relationships as opposed to causal dating,” Mateen says.) During the second week of the shutdown, the number of profiles viewed by Zoosk members in the DC area jumped by 46%.

But with the constant stream of happy holiday photographs over social-networking sites like Facebook and Instagram, experts say the pressure to be in a romance this time of year has never been so intense. “There’s an onslaught of images of family and togetherness,” says Pepper Schwartz, author of “Dating After 50 for Dummies” and a love and relationship ambassador for AARP. “That imagery strikes home when you’ve been alone for a while.” Some 43% of Americans aged between 45 and 49 years of age are lonely, according to the AARP, versus 25% of those over 70. But, Schwartz adds, “People don’t post about the family screaming at each other, they post idealistic pictures of children opening their gifts.”

The bigger the pool of singletons, of course, the more likely people will click with—or on—a compatible potential partner. Peak season for online dating on location-based dating site Match.com spans from Dec. 26 to Feb. 24, when the site sees a 25% to 30% increase in new members; Jan. 5 is its biggest day of the year. It’s far from an exact science, however: Dating sites provide access to more potential partners than do traditional dating methods, according to a 2012 study published in the journal “Psychological Science in the Public Interest,” “but the act of browsing and comparing large numbers of profiles can lead individuals to commoditize potential partners and can reduce their willingness to commit to any one person.”

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